“When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss money.” – Oscar Wilde

During today’s financial crisis, art has been frequently cited as an advantageous alternative asset class. But do the millions of dollars that might buy you a Koons or a Picasso speak about the social and spiritual value?

This Art-as-Money-blog will explore the connections and frictions between money and art. Where do those two worlds meet? And where do they clash? Or is it actually one big world with various perspectives? And last but not least: What are your thoughts about those topics? Get involved in the discussion and don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and ideas by giving your comments!

We are a global network of culture jammers and creatives working to change the way information flows, the way corporations wield power, and the way meaning is produced in our society.

As a kid, my big brother shocked the hell out of me when I asked him for 50 cents for a soda and he ripped a dollar bill in half and laughed hysterically. My only retort was: "That's illegal!!! I'm telling Dad!"
I was right. It's a federal crime to destroy real money. But how do you know if something is real, especially if you're not the one holding it?
That's the conundrum raised by Legal Tender, a World Wide Web telerobotic installation from Eric Paulos, Ken Goldberg, Mark Pauline, John Canny, and Judith Donath. Legal Tender is an exercise not in epistemology, but telepistemology in an age of mechanical reproduction

A collection of links to sources from Roy Davies at Exeter

The goal of musicFIRST is to ensure that struggling performers, local musicians, and well-known artists are compensated for their music when it is played both today and in the future. Of all the ways we listen to music, corporate radio is the only one that receives special treatment. Big radio has a free pass to play music – refusing to pay even a fraction of a penny to the performers that brought it to life. musicFIRST (Fairness in Radio Starting Today) is committed to making sure everyone, from up-and-coming artists to our favorites from years-ago, is guaranteed Fair Pay for Air Play.

FinanceAndEconomics.Org was established by Alasdair Macleod to educate decision-makers and other interested people in finance and economics. F&E.O's unique coverage allows clients to make informed risk assessments about current economic events and the likely outlook.The service is targeted at all levels of financial and economic literacy. By avoiding jargon, focusing on simple concepts and above all keeping clear of mathematical expressions, anyone can understand it.
In short, this is a much needed service at a time of great uncertainty.

2032 heralded a new era for our currency, as more than half of the world's countries converted to electronic money systems. Although the new systems were cheap and efficient, problems began to occur...people outside the systems began to suffer. Attempts were made to include the minorities, but unfortunately this led to the system being hacked. Hyperinflation swept the globe and money needed to be made tangible once again. Nanotechnology allowed the redox flow battery to dramatically reduce in size...allowing people to carry a few kilowatt hours of electricity with them; exchanging charged electrolyte for goods is now a widespread reality and because energy cannot be created or destroyed only converted...the risk from hackers is negligible.

Imagine a world without war, poverty, misery or money. Imagine a world where all people work together in a spirit of cooperation and not competition. Imagine this safer saner world and you are closer to understanding what the Zeitgeist Movement is about.
A close look at our present social systems which are built upon fundamentals which produce war, poverty, murder, crime, violence, compromised healthcare, media monopoly, corporate corruption and indifference for the environment, greed, apathetic self interest and desensitisation from others suffering, obsolete and archaic political systems based on subjective opinion (guesswork) and not on scientific and empirical certainty.
Its abundantly clear that we need to adapt our thinking because it will definitely be to our collective detriment if we do not. If we carry on so carelessly and wastefully into future, our future generations will pay the price for our mistakes. The Venus Project has the solutions.

The Venus Project advocates an alternative vision for a sustainable new world civilization unlike any socio-economic system that has gone before. It calls for a straightforward redesign of a culture, in which the age-old inadequacies of war, poverty, hunger, debt, and unnecessary human suffering are viewed not only as avoidable, but totally unacceptable.

our mission:

to widen the scope of financial, economic and political information available to the professional investing public.
to skeptically examine and, where necessary, attack the flaccid institution that financial journalism has become.
to liberate oppressed knowledge.
to provide analysis uninhibited by political constraint.
to facilitate information's unending quest for freedom.

nef (the new economics foundation) is an independent think-and-do tank that inspires and demonstrates real economic well-being.

We aim to improve quality of life by promoting innovative solutions that challenge mainstream thinking on economic, environment and social issues. We work in partnership and put people and the planet first.

nef was founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit (TOES) which forced issues such as international debt onto the agenda of the G7 and G8 summits.

We are unique in combining rigorous analysis and policy debate with practical solutions on the ground, often run and designed with the help of local people. We also create new ways of measuring progress towards increased well-being and environmental sustainability.

nef works with all sections of society in the UK and internationally - civil society, government, individuals, businesses and academia - to create more understanding and strategies for change.

Adbusters invites economics students around the world – especially PhD students – to join the fight to revamp Econ 101 curriculums and challenge the endemic myopia of their tenured neoclassical profs. Read some of the introductory articles, check out the latest dispatches on our blog, then download the Kick it Over Manifesto (and other posters) and keep pinning them up in the corridors of your department. Get a small group together and start jamming! Put your university at the forefront of the monumental mindshift now underway in the "science" of economics.

In today's world the value of people talking about your product is sometimes higher than the money you would get for it. ‘Pay with a Tweet’ is the first social payment system, where people pay with the value of their social network.

It’s simple, every time somebody pays with a tweet, he or she tells all their friends about the product. Boom.

Bernard Lietaer, author of The Future of Money (translated in 18 languages), is an international expert in the design and implementation of currency systems.   He has studied and worked in the field of money for more than 30 years in an unusually broad range of capacities including as a Central Banker, a fund manager,  a university professor, and a consultant to governments in numerous  countries, multinational corporations, and community organizations.  He co-designed and implemented the convergence mechanism to the single European currency system (the Euro) and served as president of the Electronic Payment System at the National Bank of Belgium (the Belgian Central Bank).  He co-founded and managed GaiaCorp, a top performing currency fund whose profits funded investments in environmental projects.  A former professor of International Finance at the University of Louvain, he has also taught at Sonoma State University and Naropa University.  

new music site - like sellaband & slice the pie with charity element

REX is the Relationship Economy eXpedition.
The next social and industrial order has more to do with abundance and trust than with scarcity and stickiness. The key assets are trusted relationships.
Here we'll build key elements of the Relationship Economy, playing out what it means for business, culture, society, governance, education and more, because its effects will be far-reaching.
If you want to dig deeper, I run a private workgroup that is exploring this future. For more info, see "About REX" in the menus above.

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer currency. Peer-to-peer means that no central authority issues new money or tracks transactions. These tasks are managed collectively by the network.

Imagine an economy in which life is valued more than money and power resides with ordinary people who care about one another, their community, and their natural environment. It is possible. Millions of people are living it into being. Our common future hangs in the balance

public radio station concentrating on economics

SolidCoin is an open source digital currency, based on the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, which is distributed over a peer-to-peer network to offer irreversible, low-cost, anonymous and decentralized monetary transactions.SolidCoins are the unit of currency of the SolidCoin system. Similarly to Bitcoin's BTC, a commonly used shorthand for this is “SC” to refer to a price or amount (eg: “100 SC”). A SolidCoin isn't tangible. It is just a number associated with a SolidCoin Address. See also an easy intro to bitcoin.SolidCoin officially started on the 20th of August 2011.

The True Story Behind the Oscar® Winning Film "The Counterfeiters"
Critical praise for the definitive new book about Operation Bernhard, the greatest counterfeit in history.
"The compelling story of the Third Reich's attempt to wreck the British economy by flooding Europe with millions of counterfeit British pounds....thorough research and authoritative voice enable this fascinating chapter of history to hold interest. Gripping proof that indeed all is fair in love and war."
--Kirkus Reviews

If the next economy is going to facilitate healthy flows of resources and information which support people, society and the planet, we have a lot of changes to make. Because that's certainly not what the current economy does. We are building the means (technology platforms and protocols) for this kind of healthy economy to exist.
Just as people can create value, we believe communities of people should be able to decide what they value and how that will be measured and acknowledged. This means they have to be able to create their own currencies.
In order to understand our crazy and ambitious project, you need to know a few things about we're relating to currencies and technology.

Prospect has acquired a reputation as the most intelligent magazine of current affairs and cultural debate in Britain. Both challenging and entertaining, the magazine seeks to make complex ideas accessible and enjoyable by commissioning the best writers, editing them vigorously and packaging their work in a well designed and illustrated monthly.

The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee was organized in the fall of 1998 to expose, oppose, and litigate against collusion to control the price and supply of gold and related financial instruments. The committee arose from essays by Bill Murphy, a financial commentator on the Internet (LeMetropoleCafe.com), and by Chris Powell, a newspaper editor in Connecticut.
Murphy's essays reported evidence of collusion among financial institutions to suppress the price of gold. Powell, whose newspaper had been involved in antitrust litigation, replied with an essay proposing that gold mining and investor interests should act on Murphy's essays by bringing antitrust lawsuits against financial institutions involved in the collusion against gold.
The response to these essays was so favorable that the committee was formed and formally incorporated in Delaware in January 1999. Murphy became chairman and Powell secretary and treasurer.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance is Britain’s independent grassroots campaign for lower taxes. After years of being ignored by politicians of all parties, the TPA is committed to forcing politicians to listen to ordinary taxpayers.